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I mostly skipped booklogging in May, but here are a few YA novels I did log.

• Eva Ibbotson, A Countess Below Stairs: Oh, I am vastly grateful to Penguin's Speak imprint for reprinting Ibbotson's romances, which are lovely and were previously hard to find. So far, they've done A Song for Summer, which I had already read and loved, and A Countess Below Stairs, which I just read and loved. Anna is a young Russian countess who has fled to England from Russia with her mother and younger brother after the Russian Revolution. Needing to work and wanting to help support her family, Anna takes a position as a housemaid at Mersham, the home of the aristocratic Westerholme family. She conceals her background, of course, but it doesn't take long for the entire household to fall in love with her, especially the young earl, Rupert, who is unfortunately already engaged to the beautiful but horrid heiress Muriel.
  
  Ibbotson's writing is warm and lyrical, evoking beautifully the feeling of the English countryside and of the country house in which Anna works. The characters are well-drawn and very engaging, especially the honest, direct Anna; though the evil fiancée plot point is a little hackneyed, Muriel's interest in eugenics and uninterest in the feelings of others makes it pretty easy to hate her. There's a definite fairy-tale atmosphere to the book, but it's underpinned with reality; Ibbotson doesn't let you forget the effects of the recent war and hints at the upcoming World War II.
  
  One small niggle: I was uncomfortable with Ibbotson's stereotypical view of a Jewish family; they're smart and loving, but they're all unattractive, with big noses and frizzy hair. It's weird, because the Jewish characters are generally portrayed very positively personality-wise, but there's just this weird physical appearance thing that keeps coming up.

• Sarah Dessen, Dreamland: Sixteen-year-old Caitlin had a terrible birthday; her older sister Cass ran away to New York that morning to be with her boyfriend, giving up her future at Yale and leaving only a note behind for her family. Since then, Caitlin has been struggling to sustain life as the girl left behind, missing Cass, but resenting the need to take her place at school and at home. Rebelling, she takes up with mysterious, dangerous Rogerson Biscoe, who helps her forget her problems...until he becomes a bigger problem.
  
  I figured that eventually there would probably be a Dessen which didn't quite work for me, and this is it. I think it's mostly that usually I identify strongly with her protagonists; here, I found Caitlin annoyingly passive -- she doesn't really rescue herself, although she does eventually find the strength to help herself recover. Also, I didn't really believe that her family and friends wouldn't have clued in sooner to what was happening to her. I did appreciate that the book is just as much about Caitlin's relationship with her family and friends as about her abusive relationship with Rogerson, and Dessen does a fine job making the absent Cass a strong character, but the book just didn't quite hang together for me.

• E. Lockhart, Dramarama: Sadye and her best friend Demi are finally getting away from their boring Ohio hometown; they're going to drama summer camp at the Wildewood Academy of Performing Arts, where they hope they can be the razzle-dazzle selves they can't show in Brenton. Once there, Demi blossoms, showing off his great voice and fabulous stage presence and hooking up with guys in the open for the first time, but Sadye finds that she doesn't fit in as well as she'd hoped.
  
  Most of Dramarama is excellent fun, particularly for a musical theatre fan like me. There are lots of theatre details and backstage gossip, and the tone is delightfully bitchy and witty. The characters are great, especially Sadye and Demi; Lockhart does a wonderful job showing how their relationship changes because of their different reactions to and experiences in camp. However, the ending was a letdown. I can see that Lockhart was trying to avoid the usual "heroine triumphs in end-of-summer show" thing, and I totally understand that, but what replaces it just felt kind of...flat to me. Still, on the whole, I enjoyed Dramarama a lot and will be looking for more Lockhart.

Also read this month:

• Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Shuttle (Persephone)
• Dia Calhoun, Avielle of Rhia
• Helen Cresswell, Bagthorpes Battered
• Georgette Heyer, Regency Buck
• Susan Isaacs, Past Perfect: even more disappointing than her last couple of books.
• Julie Kenner, The Prada Paradox: decent fun, but I preferred The Givenchy Code.
• Henry Kuttner, The Dark World
• Elizabeth Moon, Once a Hero, Rules of Engagement, Change of Command, Against the Odds: I loved Once a Hero and Rules of Engagement, but I thought the last two went downhill quite a bit -- too many plot strands I didn't care much about.
• Garth Nix, Lady Friday
• Winifred Peck, House-Bound (Persephone)
• Diana Peterfreund, Secret Society Girl
• Rafael Sabatini, Scaramouche
• Sherwood Smith, Senrid: a lot of fun, with memorable, complex characters, and excellent worldbuilding. It took me a little while to get into, mostly because I didn't have time to sit down with it; once I did sit down with no interruptions, I could barely put it down.
• Zadie Smith, On Beauty
• Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin
• Sarah Waters, Affinity
• Dorothy Whipple, They Knew Mr. Knight (Persephone)
• the Seamus Heaney translation of Beowulf

• Anthony Bourdain, The Nasty Bits: a collection of magazine articles; not as good as Kitchen Confidential.
• Danny Danziger and John Gillingham, 1215: The Year of Magna Carta
• Gwyn Jones, A History of the Vikings
• David Kamp, The United States of Arugula: How We Became a Gourmet Nation
• Tom Shippey, The Road to Middle-Earth: How J.R.R. Tolkien Created a New Mythology

• Jane Austen, Emma: wow, I actually liked this more this time through; usually Emma annoys me so much that it undercuts my enjoyment of the book.
• Gael Baudino, Gossamer Axe
• Peter S. Beagle, A Fine and Private Place: this was the new edition, "revised and corrected". Honestly, I didn't notice any changes, so either they were very small (as promised) or it's just been too long since I read it. In any case, I still love it.
• Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential
• Gwen Bristow, Celia Garth: family favorite about a vivacious seamstress during the Revolutionary War.
• Helen Cresswell, The Bagthorpe Triangle, The Bagthorpes Besieged (as a prelude to Bagthorpes Battered
• Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer, Don't Look Down: this didn't hold up very well to rereading; I was really skimming the Mayer parts a lot this time.
• Elizabeth Enright, The Saturdays, The Four-Story Mistake, Then There Were Five, Spiderweb for Two
• Parke Godwin, The Tower of Beowulf
• Helene Hanff, Underfoot in Show Business
• Guy Gavriel Kay, Sailing to Sarantium, Lord of Emperors
• Betty MacDonald, Nancy and Plum
• Elizabeth Moon, Hunting Party, Sporting Chance, Winning Colors

Total books read this month: 49
Total books read this year: 182

Last updated 17 September 2007. All text and photographs © George Mitchell and Margaret Johnston, unless otherwise noted Comments, questions, suggestions to margaret@lonelymountain.net.